Now in its second year, the Maple Ridge Festival of B.C. Film provides a showcase for locally made independent features and shorts. Kicking off this year’s festival is The Prodigal Dad, the first feature from writer/director Robert Wenzek. Filmed in Squamish and Vancouver, the film is a lighthearted drama about a dentist (Brad Dryborough) who adapts to life after the death of his wife by involving himself in the lives of their daughter (Krystyna Kozlowski) and her friends. We talked to Wenzek, who is also a film editor and teacher (at Art Institute), about relating to his students, dentistry as the saddest profession, and the state of independent filmmaking.

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Q: How do you relate to your students on the subject of film? Things are so different now than when you were their age. (Wenzek is 50.)

A: I think they’ve missed something. There’s so much that’s out there, and a lot of what’s out there is made by a system. It doesn’t have that author’s voice that once existed in cinema. There were periods in the seventies and the nineties where films had a remarkable effect on my life. What I try to do to is get students to think about something they’re looking at now, and relate it back to one of those films — for example, Boogie Nights (1997) or Magnolia (1999) by Paul Thomas Anderson, and how would they play today.

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Q: The eighties are conspicuously absent from that list.

A: The eighties were great too. I think it was just a different tone. It was more of a fun decade, especially in terms of cinema. The shift toward the real director-driven piece was stronger in the nineties, with Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson.

Brad Dryborough plays the title role in The Prodigal Dad. The local independent film opens the 2nd Maple Ridge Festival of B.C. Film, which runs from March 23 to 25. /PNG

Q: What were some of the touchstones behind The Prodigal Dad when you were making it?

A: Probably more of the nineties’ films. I wanted to make it as simple as possible. When I wrote the script, I started from a place of what we had available. From the outset the idea was to do an independent film that was community-based. We had so little money. I was trying to galvanize the community around this.

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Q: Why make the main character of The Prodigal Dad a dentist?

A: It seems like it’s an occupation that might have some sadness in it. I think I read that dentists were among the most depressed people, because they cause pain to everyone they meet.

Q: Did you know what kind of tone you wanted before you wrote the script, or did it suggest itself as you made the film?

A: It just evolved along the way. I wanted it to be dramatic with comedy.

Q: Is it exciting to be part of such a young festival?

A: I think it’s a growing festival. Their mandate is to support stuff that is Indigenous to B.C., which is exactly what our film is about. Everyone involved is from B.C. We wanted it to be a 100 per cent West Coast film.

Q: Vive le Vancouver independent film!

A: There are so many cool people here, and we have so many people come out and work and have fun with us. It became such a great community vibe on our set. I know that’s a similar case with Ross (Ferguson’s) film (Primary, also screening at the festival). A bunch of students finishing up school up school with me, were looking for their first break and I managed to get them lined up with Ross. That is a huge push in helping them find careers. It’s great for our community, for stories coming out of here and the careers that people can build on.

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